arrange • compose • conduct
There are times when it’s to your credit to be easygoing, and times when it just adds work for other people. Don’t say, “I’m not picky. You decide.” There are two situations when I’m likely to hear that answer. First is when I’m taking food orders for a group. If […]
Not being Mozart is freeing, not frustrating. There is a mindset out there that people who are around a Mozart, but aren’t themselves at his generational brilliance, will feel jealousy or a sense of personal failure. Call it Salieri Syndrome. But not being Mozart gives you so much freedom to […]
It’s obvious. The best thing about your first year is your second year. That’s often been said to and about first year teachers, and it’s true there, for sure. The learning curve of your first year teaching, and in most jobs, is so steep that the second year is better […]
How many of the things you do could be described with this statement? I can describe so much of my life as things I didn’t expect to be doing. Some are things I aspired to, but that came into my life unexpectedly. (Directing Shades of Blue!) Some are things I […]
Summertime affords space for reflection. Can you bring that to your everyday? But I think that waiting till summer to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t takes too long. Often, when I’m in the middle of work, I don’t think I can possibly also devote time to stepping back […]
I’m not a generalist. No one is. I don’t suffer any delusions of being a world-class composer or arranger, but I know that I have specific knowledge that makes me effective in specific situations. I can write for my own groups better than almost anyone else, because I know exactly […]
What’s your personal purpose statement? I’ve worked in the past on developing a purpose statement for my ensembles. Here’s where I landed for the Aces: To make high-level genre-agnostic music with tenors and basses from Rockford HS and share it with people through performance and recording, such that (A) a […]
Are you appreciating the skills of the people you work alongside most frequently? We turn today to the book of Sports Night, Season 1, Episode 10. In this scene, TV anchor Casey is being produced by a sub producer (Sally), and his longtime producer Dana is questioning the trust he […]
What do crossword puzzles and group singing have in common? I do crosswords precisely because they’re pointless. Okay, I don’t think crossword puzzles are pointless. I think they’re great. But I think doing them is pointless. I don’t do them to train my brain, or to get better at them, […]
My favorite list in the Getting Things Done system (and GTD is built on lists) is Someday/Maybe. David Allen, creator of the system, created the Someday/Maybe list as a catchall for everything that doesn’t fit in current projects at any time window. As it sounds, you populate them with any […]